Housing, camp sites, units,
and officers were all prior necessities to the main task in the
mobilization of Negro manpower: the induction and training of
soldiers for employment in war. Private soldiers and
noncommissioned officers were the final key to that employment.
Upon their capabilities, qualifications, and adaptability depended, in the last analysis, the
performance of the units,
the effectiveness of the leadership of their commissioned and
noncommissioned officers, and the effectiveness of the training
facilities provided by the Army.

Army planners had counted on
advances between wars in the civilian training and experience of
Negroes to make feasible the provision of a greater number of types
of Negro units than those activated in the first months of
mobilization. But differences in Selective Service rejection
rates, in Army test scores, and in the training progress of Negroes
as a whole when compared with whites as a whole soon revealed a
general lag between Negro registrants of draft age and the rest of
the country. To construct and employ, on the same master plan,
separate but parallel units in all arms and services with one of the
two parallel groups of units recruited entirely from a relatively
unprepared portion of the population barely susceptible to the
selection and classificationprocedures applied to the
rest of the Army was a difficult task at best. This task was made
more difficult not only by the selection and employment policies of
the Army, but also by widespread variations and deficiencies within
the Negro population. These variations and deficiencies began to
show up early. They created problems in the employment of Negro
manpower both early and late.

In World War II, Negroes
were accepted for military service at a consistently and
continuously lower rate than whites. As of 30 September 1941, when
the number of Negroes classified in the immediately available class
(I-A) by Selective Service was 13.1 percent of the total in that
class, and therefore higher than the approximately 10.7 percent
proportion of Negroes among those registered, the number of Negroes
in Class IV-F (rejected by Selective Service) showed an even
greater disproportion. Of men rejected as a result of physical
examination, 12 percent were Negroes; of men rejected for obvious
physical or mental disabilities without physical examination, 15.8
percent were Negroes; and of men rejected because of any other
reason without physical examination, including failure to meet

[239]

minimum educational requirements,
35.6 percent were Negroes.1
Of the registrants classified between 15 May and 15 September 1941, 1.1 percent
of the whites, or 60,00l were deferred for educational deficiency, while 12.3
percent of the Negroes, or 83,466 were so deferred.2
By the end of 1943, of all white men examined at induction stations, 30.3
percent had been rejected, but of all Negro men examined 46 percent had been
rejected. During 1943, over half of the Negroes examined at induction stations
(432,086 out of 814,604) were rejected as compared with 33-2 percent of the
whites examined.3
The number of Negroes classified for limited service only was also excessive
in comparison with the number of whites so classified.4
The higher proportion of Negroes available in IA in the earlier months of
mobilization reflected the smaller numbers of men deferred in essential categories
rather than a higher percentage of physically and mentally fit men.

Of the Negroes rejected, the
largest numbers fell into two classes: venereal disease cases and
the educationally deficient.5 Of the two, educational deficiency
was by far the more important manpower problem, since facilities for
relatively rapid treatment of venereal diseases were known. Once
cured, the venereals ceased to be a problem, except in cases of
reinfection after inductionwhere duty time was lost.
Moreover, after March 1943, when facilities for rapid cures became
generally available, most venereals became eligible for induction.
But the cure for educational deficiency, while also known, was a
long, slow, corrective process whose end result could not be
predicted. The best that could be expected in a short period of time
was to raise men to a "functionally literate" level.
This, of course, was "education" in a highly limited
sense.

The Army itself was not
directly concerned with rejected Negroes. Since they were not
subject to Army training, they became part of the problem of
over-all use of national manpower as surveyed and controlled by the
War Manpower Commission. But the state of affairs symbolized by the
high rejection rates of Negroes was, nevertheless, of the greatest
significance to the military use of Negro manpower. It meant that,
in manpower calculations, the number of Negroes in the age group
eligible for service who could meet initial Army standards fell
short of expectations. Therefore the ability of the Negro
population to share fully in the defense of the nation was limited
from the beginning by disadvantages to which Negroes were subject in
their civilian lives.6 It meant, further, that of those Negroes
inducted into the Army, a large proportion would be men who barely
crossed the line of acceptability by Army standards. For the same
circumstances which caused so large a number of rejections left
a large group of men who barely met the minimum in-

[240]

duction requirements. This
heavy weighting of Negro personnel toward the lower end of the
acceptable scale became apparent in the first year of
mobilization. As induction standards changed, the problem posed by
the qualifications of Negro inductees was intensified. Each change
in standards meant subsequent administrative changes for the
reception and absorption of Negro soldiers.

During the first few months
of mobilization, no definite mental or educational standards for
induction were prescribed. Mobilization Regulations merely required
that no registrant who had previously been discharged from the
Regular Army, Navy, or Marine Corps because of inaptness or who
could not "understand simple orders given in the English
language" would be inducted .7

In the spring of 1941 the
Personnel Division urged that standards be raised to reduce the
numbers who could not readily absorb instruction so that more of the
nation's men of higher abilities could receive the benefits of a
year's training. G-1 was aware that the largest reduction of low
grade men resulting from any upward revision of standards would
come in the Fourth and Eighth-the Southern-Corps Areas and that a
new standard would serve to reduce the numbers of Negroes eligible
for the Army. Such a reduction was not considered too serious, since
as yet neither housing nor units in sufficient numbers were
available for Negroes. Nevertheless, a "hostile public
reaction" might come from the South. G-1therefore suggested that any
test applied be a simple one which local boards could give.
Accordingly, beginning 15 May 1941, the ability to read, write, and
compute "as commonly prescribed in the fourth grade in grammar
school" became the standard for induction. Those men who had
not completed the fourth grade were eligible for induction only upon
passing the Minimum Literacy Test prescribed by the War Department.8
This standard remained in effect until 1 August 1942, when the Army
began to accept illiterates in numbers not to exceed 10 percent of
all white and 10 percent of all Negro registrants accepted in any
one day.9

Once inducted, the selectee
received additional tests and classification interviews at
reception centers. The chief test on which classification was based
was the Army General Classification Test (AGCT). This test, given
generally from March 1941 on, had been devised to help the Army sort
soldiers according to their ability to learn. It was designed to
separate the fast learners from the slow.10

[241]

The AGC test contained three
kinds of tasks: first, "verbal items of increasing
difficulty, sampling the person's grasp of the meaning of words and
their differences; second, items involving solution of
arithmetical problems and mathematical computations; third, items
requiring ability to visualize and think about relationships of
things in space." 11
It attempted to measure the effects of at
least four elements influencing the rate of learning: (1) native
capacity, (2) schooling and educational opportunities, (3)
socioeconomic status, and (4) cultural background. 12
That it
measured native intelligence alone or completely, Dr. Walter V.
Bingham, Chief Psychologist of the Classification and Replacement
Branch of The Adjutant General's Office, denied:

It does not measure merely
inherent mental capacity. Performance in such a test reflects very
definitely the educational opportunities the individual has had
and the way in which these opportunities have been grasped and
utilized. Educational opportunities do not mean schools merely.
Learning goes on about the home, on the playground, at work, when
one reads a newspaper, listens to a radio, or sees a movie. There is
nothing in the title of the Army test that says anything about
native intelligence. It is a classification test. Its purpose is to
classify soldiers into categories according to how ready they are to
pick up soldiering how likely they are to learn easily the facts,
skills, and techniques necessary for carrying out Army duties.13

In three of the elements
whose effectswere measured, Negroes as a
whole entered the Army with grave deficiencies. School facilities
for Negro inductees had been measured and found to be inadequate
by general standards.14 The effect of playgrounds, newspapers,
radios, and motion pictures as a part of their learning process
could only be estimated, but it was known that in many communities
with large Negro populations one or more of these influences upon
learning was missing from the backgrounds of most Negro inductees.
The socioeconomic status of Negroes the country over was generally
lower than that of the rest of the population, and the general
cultural background of Negroes was lower still. Native capacity,
unexercised and untried, had also faced many impediments to
development in civilian life.

The Army was not primarily
interested in native capacity or in cultural background but in the
working ability that the inductee had attained and in the promise of
future development in a short time which that level of ability
indicated. On the AGCT, the most rapid learners-those making scores
of 130 or above-were ranked at the top in Grade I and the slowest
learners-those making scores of 69 or below-were placed in Grade V.
With 100 as the average, the AGCT was designed to obtain scores
that would reflect a normal distribution curve, as follows: Grade I,
7 percent; Grade II, 24 percent; Grade 111, 38 percent; Grade IV, 24
percent; and Grade V, 7 percent.

These grades had broad and
general usefulness to classification and assignment. Grades I, II,
and III were ex-

[242]

pected to produce leadership for the
Army, with officer candidates coming wholly from Grades I and II-from men
with scores of 110 and over. Grades I, II, and III were also expected to furnish
the Army's enlisted specialists and technicians. The lower grades could be
expected to produce only semiskilled soldiers and laborers.

Seldom did a given unit's
distribution work out in the expected ratios. But the average unit
and the Army as a whole were not too far from the predicted
figures. On the other hand Negro inductees, out of whom units of
all types were to be constructed, fell almost wholly in the two
lowest classes. From the beginning, therefore, the tests had special
significance in the organization and training of Negro units.

While Negroes generally
ranked lower on the AGCT than whites, Negroes and whites of
comparable backgrounds made comparable scores. High scorers among
Negroes learned as rapidly as high scorers among whites, provided
that motivation, surroundings, and instruction were of the same
quality. That there were fewer Negroes with average backgrounds
measured in terms of educational and vocational experiences was
not the fault of the tests. That there would be fewer high scorers
among Negroes per hundred than among whites was expected. How great
a disparity existed was fully demonstrated after the first months
of testing. (Table 5)

In addition to the General
Classification Test the Army also gave newly inducted men a
Mechanical Aptitude Test. While both Negroes and whites, in general, scored lower on the Mechanical Aptitude Test than on the
AGCT, here the racial disparities between the highest and lowest classes were,
as would be expected from an examination of the vocational
opportunities and experiences of Negroes, even more marked. (Table
6)

While the percentages of
illiterate and low-scoring Negroes were much higher on both tests
than among whites, their numbers were no greater. The problem
created centered therefore not around the numbers of low-scoring men
to be absorbed by the Army (for the total percentage in each grade,
as shown in the totals columns of Tables 5 and 6, was not markedly
affected by the inclusion of Negroes) but around the high
percentages to be absorbed in specific, separate units. Because of
the biracial organization of the Army, this problem became
immeasurably greater among Negro than among white units. The 351951
(8.5 percent) white AGCT Grade V men inducted between March 1941 and
December 1942 could be distributed among the total of 4,129,259
white men received, while the 216,664 (49.2 percent) Negro men
received in the same period-135,000 men fewer could be distributed
only among the total of 440,162 Negro men received. Low-scoring
white men could be distributed as fillers to existing white units
and installations containing men who had already had varying amounts
of training. The further progress of these units and installations
was not seriously hampered by the addition of relatively small
numbers of slow learners. The cushion of trained Negro men already
in units in early 1941 was small. The few Negro units were therefore
much less able to absorb slow learners. The mechanical

aptitude problem was an even
greater one within units. For example, the mechanical aptitude
distribution of 2,136 Negro soldiers arriving at Camp Gordon
Johnston for training in the fall of 1943 as amphibian truck drivers
was:

Although illiterate and
unskilled men were an Army-wide problem, the average white unit
could expect to receive, in the normal course of events, a few
illiterate and low-scoring men, while the average Negro unit could
be equally certain of receiving up to half of its men in the
unskilled, illiterate, and Grade V classifications.

With or without
classification tests as verifying evidence of the poorer civilian
backgrounds of Negro inductees, the training of units formed
primarily from men from the lower economic and cultural strata of
American life would have presented difficulties. But the tests and
test scores had a negative as well as a positive aspect in the
classification and training of Negro enlisted men. Since the bulk of
Negroes fell in the two lowest classes, their scores served as a
psychological barrier to effective training. Officers and training
headquarters, expecting a normal spread of classification and
aptitude grades, tended to assume that any other distribution was
fatal to success in training. To officers and

training supervisors, the
low cross-sectional scores of Negro units became portents of
inevitable training failure about which little could be done.
Furthermore, although the psychologists who developed the tests
insisted that their results should not be equated with a measurement
of absolute intelligence, the nonpsychologists who made up the bulk
of the Army users of the tests early and consistently referred to
AGCT scores as indexes of intelligence. If the tests measured the
ease with which a civilian could learn to be a soldier, why wasn't
it a test of intelligence? If white soldiers consistently rated
higher than Negro soldiers in their AGCT scores why was not the
conclusion that Negro soldiers were of inferior intelligence
justified? Granted that a background of poor educational and
cultural opportunities produced low scores, was this not evidence
that poor background stunted mental growth and thereby produced
poor intelligence? The tests themselves, with their results coldly
recorded in finite figures, therefore became a hazard to effective
training.

The Army's psychologists,
while warning against the use of AGCT scores as
"intelligence" indexes, neglected to add a warning against
comparing scores of men from two different groups whose backgrounds
and prior experiences were not parallel. For tests to show
comparable aptitudes, both groups should have had relatively the
same familiarity with the language and concepts used; formal
schooling should have been comparable, not only in grades
available and completed but also in the content and quality of the
courses; motivation and rapport with testers should have been about
the same.16 In most of these respects, Negro and white troops
taking the same AGC test differed. Even if the tests had been
designed to take into consideration the cultural and economic
backgrounds of the two groups of soldiers, methods of
administering the tests would probably have prevented obtaining
truly comparable scores. And if the administrative circumstances
could have been kept identical, the two groups

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tested still could not be
compared absolutely on the basis of the original tests, for they
had been standardized with the mid-point of the scale at "the
central tendency of the distribution of scores made by the adult
white male population of military age." 17

Unfavorable AGCT
distributions prevalent among Negro troops were used in some arms
and services to justify restrictive practices in the employment of
Negro manpower.18 They provided a ready explanation in resisting
public pressures for the wider use of Negro troops.19 Preoccupation
with AGCT scores reached such a point in some units and training
centers that attempts ateffective classification and
training were virtually abandoned.

Unit after unit complained
formally of the poor "intelligence" distribution of the
men it was receiving. Many of the complaints, in the light of
expected distributions, seemed justified, especially when combined
with the numbers of illiterates received in some units.20 Several
of the larger Negro units, formed before the initial restrictions on
the induction of illiterates were made in May 1941, judged
themselves to be severely handicapped in terms of the new standards. The 367th Infantry, the new Negro Regular Army regiment
activated in March 1941, requested permission to discharge 815
illiterates whom it would not have received under the new standards.
The Third Army, in forwarding this request to the War Department, observed that its 46th Field Artillery
Brigade and 93d Engineer Battalion were no better off, and
recommended that the
illiterates from these Negro units be transferred to service
organizations. The War Department approved the transfers "when
and if new Colored units of a labor type" became available.21

But, since Negro units of
all types were being made available at a rate barely able to absorb
incoming selectees, units which began with an overload of
substandard men were generally unable

to exchange them with other
units. The 46th Field Artillery Brigade, cited by the Third Army,
still had an unfavorable distribution of Army General
Classification Test scores at the end of April a year later. (Table
7) The Inspector General now recommended that a portion of the Grade
V men in this unit be replaced by men in higher grades. The IV Army
Corps thought that at least a thousand of the unit's 3,651 Grade V
men should be transferred from the brigade. But the brigade was
authorized to transfer 250 men only. They were to go to two new
ordnance ammunition companies. The ordnance companies were to
supply the brigade with replacements from among the best men whom
they received as fillers.22

Problems of score and skills distributions
plagued Negro units continuously. The Armored Force, having received excessive
numbers of low-scoring Negro fillers, asked in 1942 that reception centers
be required to send physically qualified Negroes with scores not lower than
Grade IV to Negro tank battalions.23
The 1st Airbase Security Training Group reported in 1943 that in a four-month
period it had received 4,600 "unculled" fillers for ten battalions.
Of these, 91 percent were in Grades IV and V with over 50 percent in Grade
V. The g percent remaining were not enough to provide the necessary noncommissioned
officers and specialists for ten battalions.24
One antiaircraft battalion protested in 1942 that the unsatisfactory state
of its records disclosed by an

[247]

inspection was caused by the lack
of adequate clerks. Of the ten battery clerks and assistants, three were in
AGCT Grade III, six in Grade IV, and one in Grade V. They were incompetent
and showed little interest in improving their efficiency. "These clerks
are fully aware of the improbability of disration [reduction in rank], owing
to a dearth of suitable intelligent replacements," an inspector reported.
The situation in this unit was soon to be aggravated by the loss of a battalion
cadre and of men entering officer candidate schools.25

Complaints about the receipt
of excessive numbers of low-scoring and unskilled men were
usually answered with a reference to the generally poor AGCT and
experiential distribution among Negro selectees. Preferential
standards, the War Department explained, could not be established
while most other Negro units had equally unfavorable distributions. In some instances, as in the case of the
antiaircraft battalion mentioned above, the total percentages of
Negroes in Grades I, II, and III in the units and training centers
of the requesting branch were higher than similar percentages
for the Army as a whole. In these cases commands were told to search
their service units for men qualified for more technical jobs.26

Various types of screening
programs to provide men having higher scores forselected units were
suggested from time to time but these presented practical
difficulties which generally prevented their use.27
In the first
place, all units required a measure of higher-scoring men to provide
a necessary minimum of capable noncommissioned officers. The
suggestion had been made that such service units as port battalions
might solve this problem by using white noncommissioned officers
and Negro laborers, thus releasing qualified Negro administrative and leadership personnel to tactical units. The
morale problem created by any proposal which denied the possibility
of advancement within their own units to Negro enlisted men was
considered well-nigh insurmountable.28 Nevertheless, this proposal
for the use of white noncommissioned officers, especially as it
related to service units, continued to crop up from time to time .29

Nowhere was the poor
distribution of high-scoring men felt so keenly as in the Negro
divisions. The distribution in each division was always heaviest in
the lowest AGCT grades. Despite several attempts to correct the
divisional situation, no workable means of doing so was
discovered. Despite the fact that large numbers of inapt men had
been cleared from the 93d Division during its training period,
regiments of the division arrived

[248]

overseas with AGCT
distributions which normally would have been considered
prohibitive of effectiveness.30

Before its formal
activation, the 92d Division attempted to obtain a more favorable
distribution of skills and ability than would be expected from a
random shipment of fillers. The division argued that its units at
Fort McClellan, Alabama, could expect to receive a large percentage
of their fillers from the Fourth Service Command. These fillers
would not meet the requirements of a division. It requested a
special schedule instead, with reception centers supplying men
according to requirement rates for each type of unit. The War
Department approved a special schedule, based not on the
likelihood of obtaining high-scoring men but on the basis of past
proportions of Negroes furnished by each service command.31 While
the headquarters and special troops units received a
disproportionately high percentage of men from the Second and
Fifth Service Commands over three-fourths of all the men received
by the division came from these

Northern areas-the
division's regimental combat teams were left to
absorb an equally disproportionate
number of men from the Southern Fourth and
Eighth Service Commands. If the
purpose had been to provide the division
with a true cross-section of the
nation's Negro manpower, such a schedule
would have been adequate; if it was to
guarantee a higher percentage of
high-scoring and skilled men such a schedule
could not have been successful. For,
as with Negro troops as a whole, the
fillers for the 92d came in largest numbers
from the areas that had previously
furnished not only the largest percentages
of men but also the largest proportions
of low-scoring men.

In the spring of 1943, G-3
proposed that all of the 7,00o Grade
V men then in the 92d Division in
excess of 10 percent be screened out and
replaced by higher-scoring men. The
Grade V soldiers could be used in new quartermaster service battalions and
similar units, under noncommissioned officers
especially selected for the purpose.
Men from replacement training centers
could provide enlisted leadership for
the division's new personnel. On further
study it developed that, in order to
obtain 7,000 replacements with higher
scores, it would be necessary to induct
and screen 12,500 men, of whom 5,500,
based on 100.00 past induction experiences, would be - Grade V's. These
low-scoring men added to the original
7,000 taken from 10.60 the division would
comprise 12,500 men 42.85 43.80 -almost enough for
another division to be placed in other units.
There were not enough un-activated
units in the troop basis to absorb
this many Grade V men at once, nor was
there a source from which their
"selected" non-

[249]

commissioned officers, who
would have to be obtained over and above the 12,500 figure, could be
obtained. Moreover, the replacement center men whom the Ground
Forces had originally hoped to use as selected noncommissioned
officers for the 92d Division were, during the period of
discussion, already dispersed to other units. To embark on another
projected induction and training plan to obtain sufficient high
scorers to provide noncoms for 12,500 Grade V's, increased by the
number of additional low scorers it would be necessary to induct
in order to obtain the required high-scoring noncoms for the
original 12,500, looked like mounting a permanent treadmill.
Moreover, Army Service Forces protested the proposal because of the
effect which it would have on future service units. Army Ground
Forces therefore recommended that the plan be dropped.32

Screening proposals for
units of less than divisional size might fail for reasons other than
that of the sheer numbers involved. The time needed to arrive at a
decision and the then current location of the unit might affect
plans adversely. The 76th Coast Artillery (AA), one of the pair of
antiaircraft regiments activated in August 1940 and therefore one
of the oldest of the new Negro units in the Army, had, in March
1941, the following AGCT distribution among its new selectees:
AGCT Grade I, none; II, 2; III, 28; IV, 124; V, 385; illiterate, 351
; unclassified, 7; total, 897. According to basic classification
theory, this group of selectees should have been ableto produce only thirty
noncommissioned officers at best. Of these, only two would have been
eligible for OCS consideration. This unit, like others, complained of the poor material sent it but, receiving no other,
proceeded to do the best that it could. In May 1942, when the
regiment had completed the major part of its training and was
tactically disposed in the Eastern Defense Command, a
representative of the Second Corps Area Engineer answered the unit's
call to check its malfunctioning searchlights. He reported:

The condition of their
lights is directly traceable to a lack of preventive maintenance
and maladjustment of the equipment through ignorance and
inaptitude of the operating personnel. The non-commissioned
officers, as well as the men of lower grades are, in general,
lacking in the qualifications necessary for the successful operation of a Searchlight Battery. They do not have sufficient
capacity for understanding and mechanical instinct is lacking.
Inspection of equipment indicated that even the simplest
adjustments and operations were not being correctly performed, even
though the men had been told repeatedly how to do them. The
non-commissioned officers cannot be trusted to do any of the second
echelon work without continuous officer supervision, which is
impossible with the myriad of other duties officers must perform
in the course of a normal day.

Men of the caliber of those
in this regiment, the Engineer concluded, should not have been
assigned to operate such "delicate and expensive"
equipment.33 This single paragraph contains the basic elements of
most complaints about the quality of Negro enlisted men and its
effect on units.

[250]

The report on the 76th Coast
Artillery received serious attention from several agencies but none
thought that much could be done about the unit so long as it
continued with its existing low-scoring personnel. Like the
analysis, suggested methods for improvement contained the basic
elements of most correctives advanced to meet such complaints. The
antiaircraft command concluded that the unit's main problem was that
"colored soldiers lack the mechanical interest and capacity for
understanding searchlight operation and maintenance," since few
had had mechanical or technical experience in civilian life. It
predicted that other Negro antiaircraft regiments awaiting
activation would be no better off, and suggested that it was a
mistake to man such units with Negro personnel in the first place. 34
Army Ground Forces thought that similar conditions prevailed in
other Negro units of this type, but envisioning no hope of stopping the activation of additional Negro antiaircraft
regiments, proposed extending their training time.35 Judge Hastie
felt that these were dangerous generalizations and assumptions
based on incomplete data; such generalizations were often cited
and acted upon long after surrounding circumstances were forgotten. He suggested that evaluations of the 369th
Antiaircraft, which had a higher caliber of enlisted men and
noncommissioned officers, and of the 99th and 100th Regiments,
might produce different conclusions about the suitability of
Negroes for antiaircraft employment. Judge Hastie agreed that themen of the unit under study
were not of the best quality, but the blame lay, he felt, with
faulty classification and assignment procedures. He had seen the
regiment's first contingent of men shortly after they arrived. They
"were mostly young men from the rural south, many of them
illiterates at loose ends in the community, who had volunteered or
had been called for induction at the top of the Selective Service
list." Reception centers, Hastie continued, had made no effort
to select men particularly fitted for antiaircraft work. As a
result, the 76th's men were below the average of Negro soldiers,
including those in service organizations. Hastie recommended mass
transfers of higher-scoring men from service organizations to combat
units where they would be of more value. The large induction centers
near industrial and urban areas should be authorized to send to the
76th Coast Artillery 50 or 100 men with high AGCT scores.36

These remedies-elimination
of unit types, extending training periods, transferring
substandard men, and preferential selection for combat units-were
to be suggested frequently in 1942 and 1943. At times these
suggestions had overtones of the post-World War I suggestions that
Negro troops be divided into a few elite combat and a mass of
service units. In most cases, as in this case, nothing happened. By
the time discussion of the 76th Coast Artillery was concluded, the
summer was half over. The unit had left the Eastern Defense Command
and was already over-

[251]

seas. 37
G-3 hoped that in
the future units under the defense commands could be given refresher
training that would obviate difficulties such as those affecting the
76th Coast Artillery. Significantly, this was the only indication
by a commenting agency or echelon that a part of the remedy might be
found outside the area of the unit's AGCT distribution. Later, after
the urgency of coastal defense had passed, the problem of
retraining or converting other units, white and Negro, assigned to
defense commands, became an important one.

Only in the Air Forces were
screening techniques for Negro technical and combat units both
possible and effective. The Air Forces, having stated at the outset
that it doubted the possibility of finding enough Negroes to fill
the required skilled positions in air combat and technical units,
proceeded on the assumption that initial screening was even more
vital to its Negro than to its white units. It was better able to
follow through on its screening processes than either the ground
or the service forces. It had fewer combat and technical units in
proportion to the numbers of Negroes in the command. Highly
qualified men could be transferred or diverted from its large
proportion of service units, most of which, like the aviation
squadrons, required few specialists. The greater attractiveness of
the Air Corps as a branch of service and the opportunities to
volunteer for service with this branch caused a larger number of
more highly qualified Negroes to attempt to get into the Air
Forces either through the aviation cadet boards orthrough volunteering for
specific units. As a result of the limited flying training program
for Negroes, the Air Forces had a reserve supply of highly qualified
aviation cadets rejected in single-engine flying training who,
until 1943 when some became available for transfer to the Field
Artillery for liaison pilot training, were ineligible for any
other type of flying training and who, therefore, could be assigned
to the combat or technical units activated at Tuskegee as needed
enlisted men. Tuskegee itself was a miniature replacement depot,
able to transfer men to units where they could be more readily
utilized. Moreover, the Air Forces had virtually complete control
over the internal distribution of selectees to its units.

Plans for the original Negro
air units called for men with particular skills and ratings. The
original 97 Negro selectees for the Air Corps, for example, were
drawn from a much larger number of men already in units. They fitted
required specification serial numbers.38 The 276 recruits for the
first Air Corps unit-the men who, with the 97 selectees, were later
to be assigned to the 99th Fighter Squadron-were drawn from
volunteer 3-year enlistment applicants coming from all over the
country. Besides meeting general Air Corps enlistment standards,
they had to pass the examination for the Air Corps Technical School
prior to being enlisted. At the time, approximately 50 percent of
all white Air Corps enlistees failed to qualify for further
training in technical schools. The examination requirement not only
assured the new Negro unit a higher quality of enlisted cadre from
the

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99TH FIGHTER SQUADRON
TRAINEES

sending and receiving code at Tuskegee. The
instructor
was formerly in the 39th Coast Artillery Antiaircraft Brigade.

beginning, but it also
enabled the Air Corps to avoid enlisting 550 or more Negro 3-year
volunteers to obtain 2'76 qualified men.39

For other technical units the Air
Forces followed similar initial screening methods. For its 689th Signal Reporting
Company, Aircraft Warning, Frontier, scheduled for task force use by 1 September
1942, the Air Forces had onlyone
officer and three enlisted men on 15 May 1942. The Signal Corps, at the time,
was producing neither Negro officers at its OCS nor enlisted men at its RTC's.
The Air Forces therefore arranged with The Adjutant General's Office that
out of the first week's quota of Negro selectees received in June 1942, 96
men, all high school graduates or better and all in the top three AGCT grades,
would be earmarked for the

[253]

689th. It was willing to
take five Negro officers with "some" radio or
communications experience wherever it could find them .40 From
this group it proceeded to build a unit which was highly regarded
throughout its career.

As a result, Air Forces
Negro technical and combat units were generally, in AGCT scores and
technically qualified men, closer to normal than other Negro units.41 Where proficient specialists were not available for these
units, men of higher potentialities learned the duties of
forecaster, armorer, or mechanic about as rapidly as white men of
equivalent scores, among whom there were also many with little
experience in the newer fields in which there was a huge national
shortage of trained men. The Air Forces also used reverse screening
at times, with training centers requesting low-scoring men, white or
Negro, in exchange for potential specialistS.42

Contributing to the failure
of plans to guarantee higher-scoring men to specific Negro units was
the disbelief of certain staff and command agencies in the
importance of AGCT scores. They insisted that, with good
leadership, effective units could be formed despite
disproportionately low AGCT scores. They felt that, with few
exceptions, men with low scores would make good Soldiers if not good leaders.
This reasoning applied to both white and Negro units. Before the 92d
Division's request for a more normal distribution than prevailing reception center assignment methods could insure, the
5th Armored Division had asked that corrections be made in the score
distributions of its fillers. The Services of Supply refused to
consider the request, declaring that it believed that 67 percent of
Grade V men were capable of becoming acceptable soldiers, 29
percent could be used to advantage in limited service, and only
percent were of no use to the Army and therefore should be
discharged. A score of 70, the dividing line between AGCT Grades
IV and V, SOS said, was the equivalent of a seventh or eighth grade
education. Since the median educational level for men in the 1 goo
census was 8.3 school years, larger percentages in the two lower
classes than previously predicted could be expected. Moreover, SOS
continued, AGCT scores were variable, not fixed, and therefore might
be raised through study and training, as Aberdeen Proving Ground had
done with fifteen Grade V men, fourteen of whom had moved into Grade
IV after receiving special training in reading.43 A Ground Forces
staff officer commented on a similar request from the 81st
Infantry Division:

G-1 sees no cause for alarm
as an analysis shows that approximately 96% of the men who made
Grade V on the AGC Test have had some schooling and of these over
30% have completed grade school or better. Most men classified in
Grade V can be made into first class soldiers. The principal
difference being that we cannot expect

Nor were all units and
commanders in the field convinced that AGCT scores alone were
deterrents to adequate training. The Infantry Replacement Training Center at Fort McClellan, for example, objected to a
suggested mandatory increase in training periods for units with
more than 45 percent of their personnel in Grades IV and V, warning
that the measure would produce "apparent or real race
discrimination," since all white troops could be so distributed that no white training unit would have an excessive
number of lowscoring men. "In respect to colored
troops," the center reported, "the percentage of the
present five battalions is 84% of grades 4 and 5. It is not
believed, however, that the achievement of the colored troops as a
group in the mechanical elements of training subjects such as
weapons firing, marches, etc., is much below that of white
battalions. As a matter of fact, the colored are equal in many
elements and superior in some." 45

That the AGCT score was
"not a reliable index of the worth of a man" became
accepted doctrine in many quarters. "There are many other
qualities which must be taken into consideration such as
perseverance, honesty, physical stamina and loyalty and loyalty is
not the least of these," one commander of Negro troops told a
training conference.46 A commander of a Negro antiaircraft artillery
regiment, describing an educational program for his troops, said
". . . I have come to the fixed opinion that the AGCT is not
worth a damn with colored troops. I have a 1st Sergeant in Group V
that I will stack up against any Noncom in any army as a leader of
men. And I know and am convinced that despite the ratings, I have
one of the best groups of soldiers in the Army right here in this
Regiment." 47

Nevertheless, reports from
the bulk of units and inspectors continued to emphasize the
importance of AGCT scores. The number and insistence of such reports became so great that to ignore them was impossible. Low
AGCT scores meant low intelligence and poor performance to most
parts of the Army which had to deal directly with the training of
units, largely Negro, with below average scores. Unfavorable AGCT
score distributions were not confined to fillers for Negro units.
Two divisions with low-score problems have been mentioned above.
Non-divisional white units had similar problems.48

[255]

Despite a tendency to
misinterpret and overemphasize their importance, AGCT scores, or,
rather, the poor academic, vocational, and cultural backgrounds
which they charted, were of singular significance to the careers of
Negro enlisted men and their units. They were the one measure of
potentialities upon which new units were built in most arms and
services. They, coupled with occupational histories, were the
visible evidence of the fitness of masses of otherwise anonymous men
for assignment to different types of units and training centers.
They were a basic criterion for the selection of men for leadership
positions, officer or enlisted, regardless of other qualities which
might be desired. Many Negro soldiers, on the basis of their scores
alone, were restricted in their ability to take fullest advantage
of the Army's huge and complex training program. Many units, as a
result of low scores, found it impossible to obtain the necessary
specialist training for sufficient numbers of their men, for many
specialists' programs prescribed minimum AGCT scores before an
application could be accepted. But the continuing, all-embracing
problem raised by the low AGCT grades prevalent in Negro units was
their relationship to training units for effective use within the
standard time periods allotted by training programs.

Despite the widespread
discussion of the problem among commanders and staff agencies, it
was impossible to say what the direct relationship was between
AGCT score distributions and unit training progress. It was logical
to conclude that training difficulties in units made up of large
numbers of illiterate or near-literate men unable to make full use of the masses
of training literature and printed training aids supplied by the
Army would be greater than in units whose men came from environments where all educational
processes-those of the home
and the community as well as the school-combined to contribute to
their general intellectual growth. To raise the level of Negro men
entering the Army, preferably to the point where it would parallel,
class by class, the AGCT groupings of white enlisted men, was one
solution proposed in the spring of 1943. It would have been possible
to take the existing AGCT percentages of white enlisted men and so
control Negro inductions that percentages in each AGCT grade would
be approximately the same as those of white soldiers. Though this
method, arrived at through limiting selectees to men with an eighth
grade education (twice the fourth grade limitations for
continentals), was later used with success for the induction of
Puerto Rican troops ,49 it had several disadvantages for use among
continental Negro troops. In the first place, Army nondiscriminatory
policies required that all rules and regulations be applied to
Negroes and whites alike. Such a procedure would have been
immediately open to the charge of being discriminatory, since
screening standards would be based on the scores of white troops
with the implication that only units built in the AGCT image of
existing white troops could be used by the Army. In the second place
it would have reduced the intake of Negro inductees to too low a
point to satisfy either the terms of the

[256]

Selective Service Act or the
public pressures for the fuller use of Negroes. A third reason was
that too drastic curbs on the induction of low-scoring manpower
might work disadvantageously to the Army should larger numbers of
Negroes or whites be needed as unskilled labor at any future date.
Therefore, the problem of raising the qualifications of Negro
inductees had to be discussed and applied within a framework of
general requirements for all manpower and at the same time be so
constructed that it would affect primarily the large numbers of
substandard Negro men eligible for military service. Plans and
proposals necessarily had to approach the problem through
efforts to raise the standards of border-line cases while insuring
that the over-all numbers and the racial proportions of men
received by the Army would not be affected.

Army and Mobilization
Regulations had provided that commanders should establish special
training schools or units for men of poor educational backgrounds
when their numbers made such units advisable. The number of such
local, unit-conducted schools for illiterates and low-literates
increased rapidly in 1942 and in early 1943. Since they were not
centrally controlled or reporting units, their exact numbers and
enrollment cannot be determined, but, in May 1943, just before
centrally controlled special training units went into effect, 384
units and stations, Negro and white, were receiving directly The
Adjutant General's "Our War" and "The Newsmap
Supplement," publications intended for use in literacy
classes. Many more units were receiving these
materials through local distribution agencies.50

The operation of unit and
post controlled special training units provided an extra burden
for commands which already had their hands filled with their normal
training duties. Many commanders were interpreting regulations to
mean that the establishment of these units was mandatory.51 Some
means of giving illiterates elementary courses in reading and
writing before formally assigning them to units had to be devised,
for illiterates were a handicap to the receiving units. Though
illiterates might be well received and quite useful, units had
neither the time, the instructors, nor the teaching aids to make
them quickly available for regular training. 52

The Services of Supply proposed by
mid-1942 that centrally controlled "development" units, patterned
after World War I development battalions, be established. Illiterates coming
into the Army, SOS argued, were increasing and, because of the rule to take
effect on 1 August 1942,53
they would continue to increase in numbers. Portable Civilian Conservation
Corps buildings, and CCC instructors who were experienced in training illiterates,
could be used to house and train these men.54
While AAF and G-1 concurred in the proposal,

[257]

AGF and G-3 did not. The
additional administrative and overhead load added by these units and
the relatively small numbers of men to be trained militated against
ready acceptance of the proposal.

By the spring of 1943 G-3
was ready to propose its own plan. The new plan went considerably
farther and was intended to do more than simply prepare
illiterates and low-literates for regular training. It was designed
to raise the general quality of Army enlisted men in three ways: (1)
to screen all personnel at induction stations so as to eliminate all
but the upper to percent of Grade V's,55 (2) to discharge from the
Army all men who had demonstrated their inability to absorb military
training, and (3) to establish combination labor-development
battalions to rehabilitate the remaining backward men.56 The current percentage of Grade V's in Negro units was so high
"as to present an almost insurmountable obstacle in the attempt
to organize effective Negro units," G-3 said. With the Army
then scheduled to reach a maximum strength of 8,208,000 officers and
enlisted men and women, the necessary 783,000 Negroes, "the
majority of which must be assigned to tactical units,"
should be as high a quality as possible. With shipping a bottleneck,
G-3 continued, the War Department could send Negro units overseas
only if they were not inferior to white units. Otherwise, in 1944,
"Negro units will be piled up in the United States to an
unwarranted degree and the Negro race will be denied its fair share
of battle honors as well as battle losses." To mobilize and train units which
could not be used overseas was "a flagrant waste of manpower
and time," G-3 argued. "The Army is open to severe and
just criticism for this wasted Negro manpower which, if left in
civil life, would contribute materially to an important phase of the
war effort," 57
G-3 continued. Most Negroes in the lowest
AGCT classes were from the rural South, where they could best
contribute to the war effort, G-3 felt, by remaining on the farms.
Men in the higher classifications were from the North, where few
were deferred for essential activities. The proposed solution could
be instituted "without serious repercussion. The gain in the
effectiveness of white units would not be so pronounced as in Negro
units, but, "to avoid discrimination," the plan must be
applied to both white and Negro personnel.

The plan itself was expected
to work in this manner:

1. After 1 May 1943, the
Army would reject all selectees in Grade V in excess of 10 percent.
A special "intelligence" test, combined with an interview
at induction stations, would be designed to screen out men lacking
the capacity to be soldiers while retaining men who lacked
sufficient education to pass the general classification test. The
men screened out would comprise approximately the lower
three-fifths of those currently classified in AGCT Grade V. As a
result, approximately 1 percent of the whites and 20 percent of the
Negroes then being accepted would be rejected. Since the Army had to
accept 10.6 percent Negroes, Selective Service would have to
increase its calls to insure the

[258]

Army's receipt of its
required quota of Negroes.

2. Within the Army,
streamlined machinery would be established to permit the speedy
discharge, without stigma, of men found "as n result of actual
lack of performance" and not as the result of test performances
to be incapable of becoming effective soldiers.

3. Other men in the Army,
classified in Grade V, would be transferred to units whose function
was chiefly labor and which could use men with lower qualifications
to best advantage.

4. Backward men, not inapt
enough to warrant discharge, were to be transferred to
rehabilitation or development battalions to be located at the larger
posts in the continental United States. "These battalions would
be combination labor and training battalions operating on a schedule
in which days of labor on the post where stationed and days of
training or instruction would be alternated." As soon as a
man was sufficiently trained to be advanced to a unit, he would be
transferred out of these battalions.58

Objections to the proposal-many of
which were accepted by G-3 before the final plan was presented for approval-
were several. G-3 hoped that the combination labor-training provision for
the battalions would soften basic objections to the plan's implied recognition
of the Army's need to embark on a large-scale educational program. Army Ground
Forces objected to the establishment of development battalions in any form;
Army Air Forces wanted safeguards against potential malingering that it thought
the plan involved; G-2 thoughalso
believing that the danger of malingering was a great one, was noncommittal.
The Services of Supply had had grave doubts about the plan as originally proposed
because of its provision for the rejection and discharge of large numbers
of men, the larger percentage of whom would be Negroes. The plan "has
been studied with the viewpoint that the Army only must be considered and
that any sociological problems arising as a result thereof must be disregarded,"
SOS observed. "However, it is considered pertinent to point out that
the plea of the southern states particularly those in the Southeast is `when
is the Army going to take more colored.' Any increased rejection of colored
and increased return of colored now in the Army to civilian life will bring
repercussions both economic and political," SOS feared.59

Neither the Services of
Supply nor Truman Gibson, Acting Civilian Aide to the Secretary of
War, agreed that an arbitrary line between men who could and who
could not be used by the Army was possible as a result of existing
tests. Gibson proposed that the original statement that units with
an excess of Grade V men above 8 percent could not function be
re-examined. "Most Negro units have more than 8% Grade V
men," he pointed out. "Certainly some of these have
performed in competent and creditable manners .... I know of no
study in the War Department conducted in a large number of
individual units for the purpose of ascertaining even an approximate
percentage of Grade V men the different organizations

[259]

could effectively
absorb." Standard AGC tests are not claimed to be measurements of intelligence, he continued. The ABC nonverbal
test, when given, produced higher grades for many men in Grade V. In
the ABC, "more than 30% of the Negroes retested who have been
placed in Grade V initially, in the AGCT, enter a higher
classification, in some places going even to Grade I," Gibson
contended. Test scores were by no means the only factors involved in
the training of Negro units; the manner of making assignments was
just as important, he concluded. 60

SOS also reminded G-3 that
its arbitrary statement of the Army's ability to use men rated as
inferior according to a series of tests was subject to question.
What was the essential difference between a Grade IV and a Grade V
man anyway? SOS wanted to know. All might be utilized if training
schedules for slow learners were made more realistic and if
development battalions, as suggested earlier by SOS, were put into
use. The command hoped that limitations would be placed on their
use: (1) intelligence rather than literacy should be stressed; (2)
only the lower part of Group V rather than an arbitrary 90 to 94
percent should be screened out; (3) each major component should
continue to be required to accept Negroes in proportion to its
size; (4) no transfers should be made from one command to another on
the basis of test scores; (5) no mass discharges or transfers to
development battalions of men who had had basic training should be
made; (6) mobilization training of units should begeared to their capacity to
learn-in many cases, for Negro units, at least 50 percent slower
than for white units; and (7) , Negro units should be sent overseas
in definite proportions "in order that colored troops may
receive their percentage of casualties." 61

General Davis, as a member
of the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, approved the
plan, but warned that the Grade V limitations might prove too
stringent. "In this connection," he observed, "I
would state that during my tour of duty in the United Kingdom, I
observed a number of colored units composed of a large number of
Grade V men. These units were highly commended for the services
being rendered. The port battalions were commended by the British
officials from whom they had received instruction." 62
Goldthwaite H. Dorr, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War,
thought that, instead of being discharged, inapt and low-scoring men
should be put on inactive duty in the same manner as men in the
38- to 45-year age group recently released by the Army.63

The revised draft, taking
into consideration many of the proposals of other divisions, was
presented to the Advisory Committee by General Edwards on 2 April.
The committee unanimously approved it and recommended immediate
adoption.64 Subject to the inclusion of Dorr's suggestion, Secretary
Stimson approved the G-3 plan for Grade V personnel.

The chief feature of the
special training plan in operation was not the elimination of
large numbers of Grade V men, as proposed in the original plan, but
the institution of a new induction screening process and the
establishment of new special training units for the more effective
use of that portion of Grade V registrants which ranked highest in
potentialities. At induction stations, a preliminary interview
established whether or not graduates of standard English-speaking
schools were mentally qualified. Transcripts, certificates, and
other proofs of schooling were accepted at this stage. Large numbers
of men were thereby excused from further phases of the new induction process and were declared eligible for induction. Mental
qualification tests for induction were given to all men who could
not present documentary proof of schooling. These tests were
designed to screen out registrants who would make AGCT scores above
the lower three-fifths of Grade V. For illiterates and
non-English-speaking men, a nonlanguage group test for the same
purpose was available. For men failing the Mental Qualification
Test, individual tests were given. All men failing the individual
test were then interviewed again to prevent error and malingering.65

The new plan went into
effect at induction stations in June 1943. At intervals, The
Adjutant General reported that the plan was working satisfactorily,
and that the lower three-fifths of GradeV men already inducted were
being eliminated while the 10.6 percentage of Negroes was being
retained, the difference being made up by the induction of larger
numbers of illiterates who gave promise of higher potential
abilities. Of the 40,446 men-35,872 (88.7 percent) white and 4,574
Negroes (I1.3 percent)-processed between I and 5 June at induction
centers and between 13 and 19 June at reception centers, 963 (2.4
percent) Grade V's (420 of them white and 543 colored) and 1,159
(2.g percent) illiterates (484 white and 675 colored) were inducted.
Of the total number of men inducted, 1.3 percent of the whites and
14.8 percent of the Negroes were illiterate. Though the mental
qualification for illiterates had been raised, the percentage of
illiterates inducted had risen from 1.7 to 2.9 percent. At the
same time, the percentage of Grade V men inducted was being reduced, for many inducted illiterates made higher scores on their
nonverbal tests. Between January and April 1943, 7.2 percent of all
men inducted were 111 Grade V. With the elimination of the lower
three-fifths of Grade V's, 2.8 percent would now be desired.
During the period 13-19 June 1943, 2.4 percent of the men inducted
were in Grade V, constituting a reduction of 3 percent for white
and 24.3 percent for Negroes. Of the total number of men processed
between 13 and 19 June, 11.3, slightly more than the required 10.6
percent, were Negroes.66

In many areas there was,
nevertheless, objection to the new procedure. It rejected too many
men, especially Negroes,

[261]

from a given group called.
The Qualification Test, which had been purposely kept simple, was
a primary target. From the Fort Jackson, South Carolina, induction
station came objections which embodied those of many other
observers. At the station, 4,916 white men and 4756 Negroes were
examined in June 1943. Of these, 4,427 whites or 90.05 percent and
2,360 Negroes or 49.62 percent were accepted. The disproportionate results, Fort Jackson argued, indicated that the
tests had been standardized for whites and that they, were not
applicable to Negroes:

The Qualification Test No. 1
consists of seventeen questions, and the first type of questions are
comparatively simple. For example: "write the smallest of the
following numbers in the blank space; 142 175 180 191 125,"
which, of course, is 125. This item is of elementary level and it
does have general application, and we find that the white and negro
respond with almost equal success on this item. The next four
questions deal with analysis. As for example: an arrow pointing
between north and west, and the four points of the compass are
given, the question is asked; "in which direction is the arrow
pointing"? It is found that the negro misses this type of
question in greater numbers than the white, because this demands a
detection of the correct bearing of the direction and in
interpreting this the relationships have a scheme. The negro, in
the majority of cases interviewed, is seeing this for the first
time, while the white has had many experiences in this type of
thinking. It is felt that if the negro was given this question in
the field he would have little trouble in answering it correctly.
Hence, it is not felt that because the negro misses this question,
that he does not have the intelligence to be able to answer the same
question if given to him under regular conditions to which he is
used to . . . . Item twelve, it is required to know the number of
pounds in a ton. Since the adult negro has been out of school for sometime, and it
is doubtful [whether] there are many negroes who have bought coal by
the ton, it is felt that he has completely forgotten, or
what is likely, never knew how many pounds in a ton. In items thirteen and fourteen,
a disadvantage lies in the set-up of the objective answer required,
which the negro is unaccustomed to, since it has not been introduced
on any wide scale into their school training. In most cases of our
southern negroes, the new type of testing has not been
introduced into the schools in anywhere near the same proportion
as it has into the white schools. Hence this type of question is
entirely foreign to them. Also, it is
felt that the average negro under the conditions which he is
subjected to in his testing, is more at a disadvantage than the
white, and is slower at thinking, or especially objective thinking than the white
person. This involves an adjustment that fails in the insight
upon the first experience without instructions, hence a different
method should replace this type of response where the negro is
concerned.67

While Fort Jackson's Post
Inspector found no evidence of malingering, the commanding general
believed that men "could easily be trained in how to fail to
pass this test." The Director of Selective Service for South
Carolina was "quite upset" by the high rejection rates of
Negroes, the commanding general reported. Letters and his own
observation had convinced him that "a large number of
gentlewomen with children and without children are being left ill
communities and also in the communities are large numbers of negro
laborers." Many of the Negro rejects could be used, perhaps
in "farm battalions." The state would otherwise be
unfairly burdened with furnishing a "very high

[262]

percentage" of white
men.68
The Fourth Service Command, approving the South Carolina
recommendations, observed that the South Carolina situation was
duplicated in all states of the command.69

The arguments concerning the
validity of the test for Negroes were ignored by the War
Department, for the Negro rejection rate was almost exactly what the
Army had hoped it would be. The Fourth Service Command was informed,
however, that induction proportions in the South were being
preserved. The 1940 census showed 31 percent of the population of
the command to be Negro while the induction rate of Negroes for the
period 14 June-14 August was 33 percent.70 The War Department was
satisfied that the Negro induction rate was being preserved by the
new system.

Special training units
"to relieve organizations, unit training centers and
replacement training centers from expending regular training
effort" on the expected increase in illiterates and low
literates were authorized for each service command.71 The units
were set up with the expectation that nearly twice as many Negroes
as whites would receive this special training and that the heaviest
loads would be in the two southern commands. Actually, there were
always more white than Negro trainees in these units, with nearly 70
percent of the men at any one time being white. 72
Instead of the
predicted I percent of the whites and 2o percent of the Negroes
processed at reception centers, 9 percent of all whites and 49
percent of all Negroes inducted after June 1943 went to special
training units. This number represented about 11.5 percent of all
men received through reception centers. Eighty percent of the
trainees were illiterate or non-English-speaking; the remainder
were AGCT Grade V men. From June 1943 through May 1945, over 260,111
men went through these units, of whom over 220,000-about 85 percent
of the white and 86 percent of the Negroes-were forwarded to
regular basic military training.73

Men assigned to special
training units received three hours of academic and five hours of
military training daily instead of alternating between training
and labor as originally planned. With a maximum three months of
training authorized, 79 percent of the men in training during the
fiscal year 1945 completed training in sixty days or less and 44
percent required less than thirty days. Negroes completed special
training in approximately the same average time as whites. With the
exception of a few stations, the training given was of a high order.

Although the special
training units in their two years of operation, proved the value of
accelerated, elementary literacy training for men of limited educa-

[263]

tional, mental, and language
abilities, the units were not an unqualified success in correcting
the situation which the plan they evolved from was designed to
combat. They did make available to the Army larger numbers of
white and Negro men-the equivalent of more than a dozen
divisions-who would otherwise have been rejected as illiterate and
they did provide elementary training for these men. Though marginal
soldiers no longer delayed the training of regular units, training
centers complained that special training unit men, especially when
placed in units where they had little need to practice their newly
learned literacy skills, quickly deteriorated. Many of the men, a
few months after being certified as "functionally
literate," were still signing payrolls with X's. This
deterioration was not the responsibility of the special training
units; nevertheless, commanders of Negro T/O units, many of whom
received practically all of their fillers from special training
units, tended to complain that the units had not done their jobs
well. There was some evidence that in certain of the units AGC tests
were given repeatedly to men until they raised their scores to Grade
IV. These men were then classified "literate" and released
to regular training. This practice, contrary to the purpose of the
units, was ordered stopped, with the warning that "the ability
to read and write is not in itself a requirement for successful
military training, however, that ability materially accelerates the
rate of progress." 74

There were suggestions that the problem
of slow learners and backward men could not be solved by the limited training
available in the special training units. The Neuropsychiatry Division of the
Surgeon General's Office, seeking a method for the utilization of physically
qualified men discharged from these units as inapt, recommended the organization
of slow learners into supporting and construction companies modeled on the
American pioneer units of World War I and the British Pioneer Corps of World
War II. The British had included in their units even those men who were so
backward that they could not be trusted with lethal weapons. "With good
officers and non-commissioned officers these men are magnificent," British
reports ran.

In the last six months of
1943, 90,172 educationally deficient men were inducted. Of
these 66,258 went to regular training after a stay in special
training units. The question of what to do with the other 24,000
physically fit men remained. The average slow learner could not
keep pace with the quick learner. "Such competition forces hint
to find an escape consciously (AWOL) or unconsciously
(psychoneurosis) , and the process holds back the possible speed of
training for the normal," Lt. Col. William C. Menninger,
director of the Neuropsychiatry Division, explained. Many, with more
time, could be adequately trained, though a few would be unable to
finish basic training no matter how much time was given them. If men
who scored less than 70 on the ACCT were placed in special units,
operating as construction crews, maintenance Units, stevedores,
and on manual

ASF and G-1, in rejecting
this proposal, took the position that the number of men discharged
from special training units as unteachable or unadaptable to
military training was too small to be administered effectively
without special supervisory personnel. Since these men, if retained
in special units, would have to be counted in the Troop Basis, other
organizations would have to be removed in order to keep the Army
within its manpower ceiling. The men discharged from special
training units were not thought of as a loss of trained manpower,
for the Army actually gained by replacing them with better qualified
men from the nation's manpower pool.76

Neither the old literacy
training efforts conducted by T/O units nor the newer reception
center special training units did more than guarantee Negro units
fewer totally illiterate and low Grade V men. By their very nature,
they were unable to affect markedly the upper AGCT grades so thinly
distributed in Negro units. Of Negro men released from special
training units in the first six months for assignment to regular
training, 99.2 percent were in Grades IV and V, but the number in
Grade IV was considerably larger than that in Grade V. While these
men were manifestly better able to enter
regular training than the unsorted and untrained daily 1o percent
of illiterates and random percentage of Grade V's previously
received, they relieved rather than solved Negro units' difficult
problem of absorbing too many men of poor backgrounds. While
special training units could not solve completely the problems of
units which continued to receive disproportionately large numbers
of low-scoring men, they did succeed in their main purpose: to
relieve regular units of the burden of special training and to make
available for regular training larger numbers of illiterate and
low-literate men of higher potentialities.

Since lower scores generally meant
slower learning, it was assumed that extending training periods would go far
to correct deficiencies in the progress of Negro units. In 1 943, shortly
after the establishment of the new special training units, G-3, on the recommendation
of the Commanding General, Fourth Service Command, and of the Army Service
Forces, authorized extended training programs for units which, because of
a preponderance of low-grade personnel, "unusual mental attitude,"
or other reasons were not progressing satisfactorily. Extended military training
programs, to be identified by the letter A (as in MTP 10-1A) and requiring
up to six months' training, were to be prepared. Units were to be designated
formally as substandard to prevent their being committed to an overseas theater
before receiving sufficient training. Disciplinary training was to be intensified.
Officers

Extended military training
programs were slow in preparation. After they were ready, training
headquarters were sometimes reluctant to designate units
substandard. A unit which was in demand was needed within a
minimum time while a unit which was not in demand would have an
automatic extension of its training period. What training
commands and centers wanted was better men from reception and
replacement training centers rather than substandard program
authorizations. When sixteen Transportation Corps amphibian truck
companies at Camp Cordon Johnston, Florida, were declared
substandard and placed on a 26-week substandard training program in
October 1943, the Transportation Corps protested that if better
personnel had been sent to it, this training delay would not have
occurred. As matters stood, at least five of these units would have
to be committed in their current status of training when about
halfway through the extended program.78

Extended training periods,
without corresponding adjustments in instructional techniques and
leadership approaches to the problems of Negro units, were in no
case enough to guarantee an effectively trained unit. For though
there had been general agreement as far back as the post-World War I
planning period that it would take longer to train Negro units,
there was no indication thatunits with extended periods
were better fitted to carry out their missions than many others
which had a normal training period or than many of those which were
shipped overseas without completing training.

The difficulties of carrying
out effective instruction in units with large numbers of
low-scoring men were, however, generally recognized. In those
everyday, taken for granted practices in living, thinking, and
working common to most Americans, the low-scoring Negroes of many
units had basic deficiencies for which no corrective existed in Army
instructional doctrines. Few commanders of small units had either
the time or the inclination to peer behind every shortcoming of
their troops to determine both the origin and remedy for these basic
deficiencies. That directions framed in such terms as
"discipline," "sentinel,"
"compensation," "maintain,"
"observation," "barrage,"
"counter-clockwise," or even "exterior" might be
meaningless, 79
no matter how patiently or repeatedly given,
occurred to few instructors charged with training Negro units. To
reduce what was ordinarily accepted as understandable language to an
even lower level was not easy to do without subconsciously berating
one's listeners for that lack of "intelligence" which
required annoying additional effort on the part of the instructor.

Proper instructional methods
for slow

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learners of poor experiential backgrounds
were hardly stressed in a functional manner as a necessary adjunct to good
leadership techniques as they affected the training of Negro troops.80
While American troops in general required instruction in the reasons for mobilization
and, later, in the reasons for America's entry into the War,81
Negro troops often had to be instructed as well in the bare rudiments of existence
in a machine age and, at that, in terms to which most available teaching personnel,
Negro as well as white, were unaccustomed. Supervision of their training sometimes
required more personnel than usual. The training of a maximum of 170 officers
and 3,600 enlisted men at Camp Gordon Johnston required a Headquarters and
Headquarters Company of fifty officers and 266 enlisted men.82

The range of subjects in which even a nontechnical
unit was expected to gain proficiency was far wider than the limited horizons of many low-scoring men had ever before included.
The twentysix week training program of a quartermaster railhead
company, as an example, included the following in addition to thebasic military training
subjects: storage and issue (warehousing, space utilization,
prerequisites for issue) ; vehicle loading; daily telegrams and the
computation of supplies on the basis of information furnished
therein; railhead arrangement; use of road nets and sidings;
receiving, sorting, and checking supplies; accounting for supplies;
inspection of subsistence stores; salvage operations; selection of
sites for railheads, including plans for defense, camouflage,
and protection from air attacks; practical operation of railheads;
map reading; security (including reconnaissance, defense against
guerrilla, chemical, air, and paratroop attacks, concealment,
dispersal, and camouflage) ; decontamination apparatus and its use;
demolitions; safety measures; night operations. In addition, the
unit was to conduct specialist training of chauffeurs and clerks in
event these men could not be supplied by the specialist schools.83

Moreover, in a unit of this
sort, as in many other small units which might have to operate
independently with reduced personnel, the training of all enlisted men was supposed to emphasize the importance of
individual responsibility when direct supervision was not
available. In this area alone, because of their immediate past, many
Negroes required a complete reorientation and retraining in
their daily living habits. Individuals were to be trained to
perform different tasks, such as supervision of loading details,
guiding traffic, and all phases of railhead operation so that a
single man might function effectively in many positions to allow for
inter-

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changeable team and labor
pool use of men in varying situations. The range of subjects to be
covered in twenty-six weeks was greater than many of the men
assigned had encountered in all the preceding years of their
lives. Large numbers of slow learners of poor backgrounds were
an obvious handicap to the efficient training progress of such a
unit.

In addition to the general
difficulties of training low-scoring men in a variety of tasks in a
short time, there were a number of specific areas of difficulty
which units and their men faced because of the preponderance of slow
learners. In order to complete their training and become available
for operational use, all units, including the less technical types,
had to have available the specialists required for unit functions.
Specialists required by port companies, in addition to
cargo-handling personnel, included, for example: mechanic foreman,
mess sergeant, stevedore foreman, supply sergeant, hatch foreman,
company clerk, blacksmith, cargo checker, carpenter, clerk-typist,
cook, cooper, crane operator, hatch tender, longshoreman, general
mechanic, tractor mechanic, rigger, tractor operator, truck
driver, combination welder, and winch operator. Obtaining key
specialists for service units was sometimes baffling to training
directors. One reported to a training conference:

For example, the problem of
training negroes to successfully fill key and technical positions of
an Engineer General Service Regiment or an Engineer Construction
Battalion is almost, if not entirely, unsurmountable. Such key
positions as Construction Supervisor (059) , Electrician, General
(078) , Surveyor, General (227) , Designer, Electrical (078) ,
Designer, Road Construction (382) , Designer, Structural(074) , Foreman, Machine
Shop (086) Draftsman, Mechanical (071) , Draftsman. Structural
(074) and Foreman, Bridge (541) and many others of this nature
require considerable civilian background anal experience. The key
and technical positions for Engineer units mentioned above should
be filled with men who have had a civilian background commensurate
with the job to be clone so that within a reasonable short course of
military instruction, inductees could fill the required positions.
Wide search will fail to reveal negroes whose background reflects
experience in such required key positions . . . . Since personnel
must be trained for the above key positions in 20 weeks, it can be
readily seen that upon activation, two strikes are already called on
a technical unit allotted negro personnel. The specialists required
may be named, may be rated, and may draw the pay of specialists, but
the real specialist is not there. Who does the technical work of
these so-called specialists? It is probable that the white officer
does, if it is accomplished, thus being forced to neglect his own
work.84

Officers themselves were not always
able to give much aid. At the Third Engineer Aviation Unit Training Center.
MacDill Field, Florida, where nearly all Negro aviation engineer units were
trained in the last half of the war, inspectors found training officers who
were not able to identify tools and who could not identify component parts
of engineer sets and chests. 85

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Schools were set up to
transform the thousands of young men with little civilian
experience into the specialists required, as well as into the
pilots, gunners, and cannoneers for which there were no civilian
counterparts. 86
But standards for entrance to many specialist
schools were higher than the available enlisted men of most Negro
units could meet.87

Certain units requested that
requirements for specialists' courses be lowered. They argued that
their lower-rated men could do the required classroom work and that,
in any event, they were the only ones who could be spared. For
Engineer courses, units suggested broadening the base to include
men from the upper fifth of the command. This request was
approved.88 Army Air Forces, pointing out the immediate need
for signal construction companies, urged the lowering of minimum
scores and the substitution of equivalent experience for specialist training
in Signal Corps schools. In this case the approval was conditioned
by the attachment of a white signal construction unit to help
intensify training in the Negro units.89

Other units gave retests of
the AGCT in an attempt to qualify men for specialist and officer
candidate schools. Some of these were genuine retests, in which
adequate explanations of the tests and adequate time, both often
lacking in reception centers, resulted in a marked improvement in
scores. How much of this improvement may be traced to newly acquired
knowledge and experience cannot be gauged. At other times, men
were retested several times, until their scores were raised. This
latter procedure, frowned upon by the Classification and
Replacement Branch, had little validity in a determination of the
actual scores of the men concerned. That units took the time to
administer these retests indicates how serious the shortage of AGCT
qualified men was.90

Many units were genuinely
hard put to fill quotas allotted them for officer as well as
specialist training. Since the requirement of a score of 110 (Grade
II) or better for appointment to officer candidate schools left a
relatively small number of Negro eligibles, the problem of filling
allotted quotas became a desperate one in some units.

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In 1942, inspecting officers, one
of whose responsibilities was to determine whether or not unit commanders
were exploiting fully the opportunity to send Negro candidates to OCS, found
that in many units there were practically no opportunities to exploit. While
in the average white unit 3o percent or more of the men fell within the two
top grades eligible for appointment, in the average Negro unit less than 5
percent of the men were eligible on the basis of scores without regard to
other qualifying criteria.91
Reductions for other disqualifying reasons left many Negro units without possible
candidates. School retests of candidates left more than the suspicion that
many Negro units were not too careful in certifying AGCT scores for men sent
to OCS. Candidates, once they were sent to the schools, were usually allowed
to remain. Some of the borderline cases successfully completed their courses,
but many others were rapid failures. The predominance of low-scoring men hampered
even high-scoring men in their attempts to take full advantage of Army training
opportunities, for sending men to officer candidate schools often removed
most of the enlisted leadership material from the unit.

For admission to the Army Specialized
Training Program (ASTP) at civilian colleges, Negro enlisted men were at an
even greater disadvantage, for the requirement here was a score of 115 or
better. Since only about 2.5 percent of all Negroes in the Army had scores
of 115 or better, Negroes eligible for ASTP constituted less than one-fourth
of 1 percent of all the men in the Army. In December 1943, at the program's
peak, 105,265 students were enrolled. Of these, only 789 were Negroes. They
represented three-fourths of 1 percent of the total.92

Despite the difficulty of
securing enough men with the required qualifications for
specialist and advanced training, there existed additional
barriers to the selection of well-qualified men for training. The
percentage of Negro eligibles was so small that their distribution to varying units of the arms and services made it
difficult to locate men who might have made excellent candidates
for specific types of advanced training. Judge Hastie suspected that
there were many Negro men "lost" within the Army in units
which had no need of their qualifications while other units suffered
shortages in the same field. Sufficient evidence, in the form of
requests for assignment and occasional inspectors' comments,
existed to support this view. G-3, realizing that numbers of Negro
men were in units such as aviation squadrons and medical sanitary
companies which had no true specialists' requirements, requested a
sampling survey of these units to determine if enough men of high
caliber were available there to fill some of the requirements of
more critically needed units. The results of the survey were
discouraging; there was

Later, in a blanket attempt
to salvage men of higher capabilities from units which required
proportionately fewer men of this type, the War Department directed
that certain types of units be cleared of men of greater
potentialities. "Specifically," the directive read,
"excess of men with high intelligence in units such as
aviation squadrons, sanitary companies, and service units of the
Quartermaster Corps and Engineer labor units will be reassigned to
unit where their skills and intelligence can be utilized more
effectively." 94
But the one word, "excess," defeated
the purpose of this directive. The common shortage of men
qualified as noncommissioned officers forced many of these units
to report that they had no "excess" among high-scoring
men.

There were other units in
which little attempt was made to screen out possible applicants for
advanced training. Often, officers of these units and the enlisted men themselves, having received no specific instructions
in the matter, were equally uncertain of what applications, if
any, could be made with a chance of acceptance by the men of a Negro
unit. Even units and commands with definite training requirements
were uncertain of either the procedure or the possibility of sending
Negro soldiers to certain schools. Inquiries onspecific training policies
as they affected Negroes were frequent. Will there be a separate
school for tire maintenance? the Civilian Aide's office asked. Can
Negro enlisted men be trained as guard patrolmen at Miami Beach?
First Air Force wanted to know. May they be sent to the corps area
horseshoeing school? Fourth Corps Area was asked. Are Negroes
eligible for the General Mechanics Course at Motor Transport
Schools? the Replacement and School Command and the Antiaircraft
Command inquired. Can Negroes be given observation aviation
training? Scott Field asked. Where can we send Negro medical
enlisted men for training? Second Army and the Flying Training
Command inquired.95 Occasionally an officer, observing that no
applications for specialists' or advanced training had ever come
from the enlisted men of the unit, made specific inquiries. Up to
July 1943, the 61st Aviation Squadron, with 300 men, had not
processed a single application for aviation cadet training.
"And being uncertain as to the course we should pursue,"
Moore Field's Aviation Cadet Examining Board wrote, "we have
not made a direct appeal to them as part of our current recruiting
campaign." From their records, however, the board had

[271]

concluded that several of
the squadron's men seemed well qualified "and would probably
welcome the opportunity to file applications if they were
specifically invited to do so." 96

Units might well have pondered the
wisdom of advising their men of all training openings announced by the Army,
for at times training agencies reported that they had no facilities for training
Negroes and at other times Negro trainees reporting to training stations were
summarily transferred elsewhere. Certain training facilities were considered
"inadequate" for Negroes and assigning agencies were directed to
use other facilities. School policies, moreover, shifted from time to time.
The Air Forces, desiring the Signal Corps to train Negro enlisted men for
the 1000th Signal Company, 96th Service Group, learned that Signal Corps was
training no Negroes in the required specialties. The Air Forces proceeded
to make a search to obtain men from civilian life who already had the required
training and experience.97
Some six weeks later, it learned that Signal Corps was now training Negro
soldiers in these specialties.98
Negro enlisted men arriving at the Parachute School in 1942 were immediately
transferred on the grounds that the school had no facilities for training
them and the Army had no units to which they could be assigned.99
Ordnance traineeswere ordered
to Aberdeen or other Army installations rather than to affiliated schools
because trainees in civilian plant and other private schools were billeted
in YMCA's and hotels where only "unsuitable" facilities were available
for Negroes. This restriction applied to all affiliated ordnance schools except
Hampton Institute.100
The existence of special separate schools like the Hampton automotive training
school, established by the Quartermaster Corps in April 1941 as a stopgap
program for training the increasing Negro personnel of the Army, and the course
for Negro physical therapists at Fort Huachuca established by the Medical
Department for civilians and, later, for Wacs, in 1943, further confused the
issue of the eligibility of Negroes for any and all Army schools.

The location of training
facilities in schools and colleges operating under state segregation
laws, most of whose contracts with the Army contained the usual
federal nondiscriminatory clauses, posed a further problem at times.
Generally, where these schools objected to Negro students and
where duplicate facilities existed elsewhere, Negro trainees were
sent to schools in other areas, but in some instances, as at the
School for Personnel Services at Washington and Lee University,
Negro trainees were accepted in regular courses. No general policy
on this matter was formulated.

While these additional
barriers to full participation in the Army's facilities for training
did exist, the main deterrent to the full and adequate training of
Negro

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specialists continued to lie
in the inability of a large enough number of men to meet the
formal requirements for advanced training. Most Army schools were
open to Negroes and most Negro units received the regularly allotted
quotas for school training along with all other units of their
types. The units' chief problem was to find men who were suitable
candidates for training in courses which varied from horseshoeing at
Fort Riley to airplane mechanics at Lincoln Air Base, from bakers
and cooks at stations like Fort Benning to clerks at schools like
Washington and Jefferson College. To add to the difficulty, many
units lacked sufficient men qualified by temperament or certified
ability to fill all existing needs for the noncommissioned
officers so essential to unit training and to unit operations. The
result was that most units blamed their lack of training progress on
a variety of factors, most of which they traced back to the lack of
knowledge and preparation of their enlisted men as exemplified,
visibly, in the AGCT scores inscribed on each man's Form 20 card.
AGCT scores, illiteracy, and "low intelligence" became the
major villains besetting Negro units. Special training units were a
help, and locally operated "leadership" and specialist
schools filled many a gap in unit training opportunities, but most
units felt that if they could just receive fillers with more
nearly normal AGCT scores most of their problems would be solved.

Often the existence of low AGCT scores
in a Negro unit became a bulwark against adverse criticisms of training progress
and discipline. Unit officers learned very early that the maldistribution
of AGCT scores in Negro units as measured against white unit norms was generally
an acceptable explanation for nearly all difficulties which a Negro unit might
be undergoing. If noncommissioned officers were poor, it was because too few
men were in the leadership producing Grades, I, II, and III. If training progress
was slow, it was because too many men were in the slow learning Grades, IV
and V. If venereal disease rates were high, if morale was low, if discipline
was poor, if AWOL rates were high, if mess halls and barracks failed to pass
sanitary inspections, if vehicles and equipment were improperly maintained,
low AGCT scores-low "intelligence"-were to blame. In many units
the AGCT score became the refrain for a continuous jeremiad used as a fraternal
greeting for inspectors. "When the Inspector General inspects a Negro
unit," one officer experienced in the training of Negro soldiers explained,
"the Unit Commander frequently calls his attention to the big percentage
of men below Class II. The inspector thinks, `Good Heavens, a unit like that
can't be much good' and he starts looking for trouble. Sometimes he will say
in his report, `Unit will not be ready for movement overseas until a higher
percentage of men in Class I, II, and III is assigned.' . . . Now the fact
is that some very serviceable units can be made of personnel of this type.
It would be a little silly to assume that all German soldiers are of Class
III or better in spite of their claims of superiority. The Russians might
lose some of their confidence if they knew the dreadful truth about their
mental gradations...

Something of what could be
done when the situation demanded it and when full use of resources
was made was illustrated by training centers such as the 3d Engineer
Aviation Unit Training Center at MacDill Field, Florida, where
eighty-eight enlisted instructors were used in the last half of the
war. Most of these men were young, with a median age of 24. Most
were from the South by birth and most had had limited civilian
experience before induction into the Army. Their education ranged
from the second year of elementary school through completion of
college; exactly half had had four years of high school or some
college training. All had been in the Army from twelve to eighteen
months. Exactly half were in the first three grades, half were in IV
and V. Nearly half had been manual laborers, with the remainder
spread through a varied list of skilled and semiskilled civilian
occupations, few of which had direct connection with the engineering
trades. Of these soldiers and their backgrounds the training center
reported:

The list of specific occupations will
suggest the civilian experience on which Army specialist training could be
grounded. Perhaps one-third of the list, including the bartender and the asylum
attendant, are difficult to connect with the task of building runways for
advancing air power. Even so, native human capacities under the spur of need
and the stress of opportunityoften
do respond in unsuspected ways. 102

While the AGCT scores and
the poor backgrounds of Negro
enlisted men which they measured were
certainly

central to the slow progress
of many units, they alone could not
be held responsible for all training
difficultieswhich Negro soldiers and
their units faced. While low scores were characteristic of most Negro
units, not all units faced the same varieties of
training problems, nor were all units
equally affected by comparably low scores.
Those unit commanders who discounted
the paramount value of scores in
judging the potentialities of units found
there were other factors of equal
importance involved in the successful
training of Negro units. With an
examination of these factors in the life and
training of Negro units, the role of AGCT
scores loses lustre as the touchstone for understanding the major problems of
Negro units and their training.